C4T Post #3

C4T

Both of my comments for teachers was on the blog Connected Principals,

Comment #1:

my first comment was on blog post Teachers As Advocates by George Couros. The post was written to address teacher's and how they need to put out there what is working for them, their students and classrooms. I commented and said the following "Mr. Couros,
I am a Student at the University of South Alabama, I am taking EDM310. I completely agree with you! It is important to get it out there what is working and the different changes in classrooms! I have read so many different things about education, teachers and schools! I have found all of it useful, just like this and know that others do also!
Thanks, Katelyn"

I do believe that Mr. Couros is correct about teachers needing to publish advice and practices that they have. I know through out this class writings from educators has been so helpful!

Comment #2:

My second comment was a post by Shawn Blankenship called How Do You Learn?. Mr. Blankenship's post talked about how you need to put yourself into different learning conditions and strengthen your ways of learning.

I said the following "Hi, I am a student at the University of South Alabama and I am taking a class called EDM310. This class has put me in conditions for new learning. I know that classes are suppose to broaden my learning, but this class is not only teaching me new content but also a new way of learning. It has been unlike any other class I have taken. I am using blogging as a essential way of learning, Twitter to connect to respected educators and gmail for so much more than email! I love your approach on learning and I like how you are not only concerned with the students at your school learning but also your educators. I think that one should never stop learning! Thank you for such an enlightening post!
Katelyn" I was happy to receive this comment back from Mr. Blankenship "Thank you Katelyn for your response. It is refreshing to read such a comment. Continue to rethink the way you learn throughout your life. Blogging and Twitter are currently outstanding tools, but who knows what the future will bring. Good luck in college and may your choice in career bring much happiness.

“An investment in knowledge pays the best interest.” – Benjamin Franklin"

I enjoyed both of these post and they challenged me to think about different things!

Blog #10

Don't Let Them Take The Pencils Home


Don't Let Them Take The Pencils Home is a post by Mr. Spencer which talks about a teacher whom approaches him concerned about the students taking home pencils because it has a chance of affecting the standardized tests scores. However contrary to the teacher, Mr. Spencer focuses on the solution rather than the problem. The other teacher believes that the children in low income area's look at pencil's as entertainment not learning, so she opts out of allowing to let them use the pencils at home, to not chance low test scores. Mr. Spencer gives the following solution to the other teacher, that he has set up a pencil program encouraging students to use pencils for learning purposes and also learning activities to do. The other teacher is reluctant to believe that his solution will work. This is what I took from this post, Mr.Spencer has a positive outlook and sometimes just some encouragement goes a long way. Teachers get to involved with what makes them look good, (test scores) it is clear what the other teacher is concerned about, the test scores! I think Mr. Spencer is refreshing because he is actually concerned with his students learning!

I think as a teacher it is important to focus on positive things and not every little thing and especially not test scores. I believe that if you are innovative with your students and creative with ways to help them learn then that will show on test scores! I think Mr Spencer is portrays himself as an educator who truly cares about his students and learning and not just test scores! I appreciate this post because I know one day as a teacher I will have to be reminded to not blow the small things out of proportion and to always remember that my student's should always come first. While I understand test score are important, I believe that trusting students and encouraging all types of learning is also important.

I Want To Be An Educator!

Do You Teach, Or Do You Educate? is a video about the differences of "teaching" which can often be just dates and facts and truly educating! When watching this video I was reminded of my mother and Father. My mom and dad have always used the word educated. Like I have mentioned in previous post I am getting married in March! While preparing for the wedding we have also looked into house buying and also am purchasing a car for me. My father in the last week as said multiply times have you educated yourself on this? Have you educated yourself on that? My parents have never wanted anything more than for me and my siblings to be excited about being educated on things. I think being raised to be educated on a wide range of things not just math and english, though it is important, I think it is also important to have an excitement to be educated about life as a whole! I think it is important to be educated on what its like to actually be in the room during a birth of baby, or what its like to go rock climbing, finding your way home using a map, or in my case purchasing a home. I think its important to not just read about things but seek ways to live them out! I think that apart of being educated on something is experience. I think as a educator is important to be encouraging, inspiring and to also help experience happen! I am so excited to be an educator, I owe so much to my parents and also to God and I personal think the world is so beautiful and I cant wait to share my excitement with children!

Project # 13

Blog Post #9

What I've Learned

Joe McClung is a fairly new teacher who has been teaching for a young 3 years. For each year that Mr. McClung has taught he has followed the school year with a blog post called "What I've Learned This Year". Each of the blog post summarizes his year as a teacher. He has done 3 post for each year, his 3rd year, 2nd year and 1st year. I chose to focus my attention on Mr. McClung's 2nd and 3rd year post's. I learned a lot from Mr. McClung's post, but more so he made me excited to one day be experiencing these things for myself. In college we think about teaching in a light, we as students think we are going to be perfect teachers with perfect students, schools and colleagues. I think most of us picture our careers different then they actually turn out to be. I think that this is something that he covers in his first post. Things turn out different than we expect, but what is important is that we learn something positive from it.

I appreciated that Mr. McClung says in his 2nd year post that it is important to sell what your teaching. I couldn't help but recall Randy Pausch's Last lecture when he was talking about of his first boss. He said his boss told him that he was a good salesman and what better to sell than education. A salesman can be described as someone who is aggressive, motivational and believable. I think all of these things are vital to teaching. It is important when selling something to make it sound like a good thing,and to make it sound life changing. Education is both of these things. I now look at education as a item I am excited about selling and know I will make a gratifying profit in return (seeing children succeed). Next in the post I really enjoyed reading about Mr. McClung's "school mom" or (moms). I couldn't help but be reminded of a woman who I am currently taking a class with Amanda Lloyd. I have done projects with Ms. Amanda, but also call on her and communicate with her outside of class. I feel like Ms. Amanda, with no offense to age, is like a "class mom" to me. I feel like she has mentored me in ways she might not even realize. I have had a difficult time throughout my engagement of people telling me what a mistake I am making by being so young. When working on a project, Ms. Amanda told me she enjoyed getting married and having her children young. She was encouraging to me not only because she supported my choice of marriage, but because I can recognize similar beliefs in me and her. I can see where Mr. McClung advice can come in handy it is important to cling to people that can be these figures to us.

In Mr. McClung's post after his 3rd year I enjoyed reading about how one of his "school mom's" told him about training someone when she worked for an airline. She talked about how they had a no touching the keyboard policy when training. Like he says in his post, it is important to take this approach in teaching. If you take over and end up doing the work for your student they will never master the skill. I experienced this just last week while doing some field experience. I was asked to help a sweet little girl finish her math work. We were rush by 13 other 7 year olds who were waiting on us so they could go to PE. While it would have been easier to take over the reigns and assume she would catch up later, I had to sit back with patients and help her master the math problems with what help I could offer other than the answer. Taking time and showing her different ways of resolving the problems, she would move on and would use methods on her own.

There are a lot of different valuable things to take from each of these post's. I realize after reading the comments on the post's that there will always be different opinions of what is right and what is wrong, but something that is clear throughout Mr. McClung's post is that what matters is the Students! I think it is important to take everything with a spoon full of sugar and filter it for what fits you best. I think as I mature throughout life and as a teacher I will have to find what works for me and what benefits my student's the most. I am excited to experience my own classroom and appreciate the attitude that Mr. McClung has put out there. I feel like he did a good job of being realistic and also focusing on what matters most, Students!!

Blog Post #8

Movie Productions
The content of The Chipper Series and of EDM310 For Dummies is something I think all EDM310 students have felt. In the beginning of the semester it was so overwhelming, but EDM310 has become one of my favorite class's. I like the points that Chipper makes in her video. It is hard to be self motivation and to have good time management in this course. I Found EDM310 for dummies humorous. I think it is important to laugh about things that stress you out. If you cant look at the light of things then you will never manage to make it through it. Videos that I think would be cool in reference to EDM310 is one that maybe is like the book trailer project we did for class. One thing I like about this course and look forward to is all the content that we cover. I never viewed Youtube as an educational tool, but have learned so much from the videos we watch. I honestly believe I am a changed and inspired person from some of the things I have learned. I think a video would be neat to produce that was like a movie trailer, but shows what content is covered in EDM310, but of course only a sneak peak! I think it could look really neat and exciting. I think that another video that would be neat to produce would be to talk about time management. My biggest struggle has been TIME, I know chipper covered this somewhat in her video, but I think a video with pointers would be great!

Project #11 Short Movie

Project # 12 Book Trailer

My PLN Progress

I chose to build my PLN on Symbaloo. I like this website because it allows you to make personal changes to the tiles. A PLN is a great tool to help you keep your education organized. Symbaloo is a wonderful system that reaches a variety of people but also meets individual needs of each person. I like this assignment because it is so helpful and helps me stay organized. I have seen PLN prior to EDM310 but never knew exactly what it was. The personal learning network, is exactly what it sounds like. My own personalized learning network that meets my needs!

C4T Post #6

Comments for Carrillo

Mrs. Carillo post always have the best advice. This post was about Awkward Classroom Silence.

Mrs. Carrillo gives pointers for when you get an awkward classroom silence after asking a question. I commented on her post and told her a few things and also what I liked about her post. I told her I had felt the awkward silence before and also that it is important for a teacher to stay positive. If a teacher embarrasses a student or makes them feel stupid infront of their peers they are not likely to try and answer again.

Instructional Timeline #9b

Blog Post #7

Finding Inspiration

When I logged on to my computer to see this week's assignment, I found a video that lasted 1:16:27. This video was not only longer than the average assignment, but touched me beyond any other assignment thus far in my college career. Randy Pausch Last Lecture: Achieving Childhood Dreams is a bitter sweet video, that touches your soul. I had hoped before even pressing play that I would find the inspiration to have enough to say when writing this. After the video I had to take a minute to take the whole video in and even had to review parts of it because I liked the content so much. I was overly impressed and inspired by this video. Randy Pausch says in the beginning of the video it is not about cancer, however it was still heart breaking to watch because his wife's tears shows how hard it was on his family. I felt sad after this and even found myself crying at the end. I felt sad for his family, but I found it beautiful to witness a man with such a great legacy. The lecture was motivational,and after watching it I felt refreshed and delighted to have the opportunities that I do in front of me. I am not sure what we were suppose to take from this video in regards to EDM310, but I learned valuable life lessons from it.
when watching this I kept thinking about quality not quantity. This saying best describes what I took from Randy Pausch's life. It is sad that he died at such a prosperous time in his life and only a couple of years after his 80 year old father died. His life, however was filled with achievements and he left a wonderful legacy. I found it neat how many people he talked about and how they each effected his life, and also how many different lives he helped shaped.

Randy Pausch talks about childhood dreams and achieving them. He gives examples of different childhood dreams of his own and tells about how he reached them. He goes through the people who helped him and also the people he helped along the way. There were things that he did not achieved but this didn't mean he didn't achieve something valuable. He says experience is what you get when don't get what you wanted. He also goes on to talk about "head fakes" or indirect learning, how sometimes when we learn something through doing something else. He says "all that is well, ends well." this is fitting to his life. It is apparent that he had a well life and according to this lecture his life is ending well.

I think that Randy Pausch is inspirational, not because he died of cancer, but because he was humble and honest. I loved how he gave credit to every person who deserved it, even to his father for winning a particular stuffed animal. He seemed so loved and this is shown not only by his support but also by the looks on the faces of the audience. He was so personal and addressed and credited everyone whom he talked about. One of the most inspirational things to me is when he is talking about his first boss encouraging him to go to graduate school. He says that Van Dam tells him that he is one heck of a sells man and what better to sell than education. Randy actually seems to get choked up at this point. I think this is a beautiful part of the lecture. Randy Pausch taught me new things through this lecture and also refreshed things I already knew. I learned that it is important to have dreams and to be persistent. It is important to know the different ways of saying what you need to say to someone. You need to be good at something to be valuable. If you have a gift you need to pursue it and embrace it.

Lastly I enjoyed the end of the lecture when he ask what the head fake was of the lecture. The first one he says is that the whole lecture can be applied to your entire life and the second one is that the lecture was intended for his children. This touched me the most, as I sat there and grieved for the lost of these children's father I began to think, Randy Pausch had such a wonderful legacy, but what is the best part of his legacy? I believe that the greatest legacy you can leave is children. I noticed several times throughout the lecture that he referenced how he was raised. I believe his parent's had a huge part in making him a respectable and successful person. Dylan, Logan and Chloe have a dad whom they can grow up proud of.

Even though Randy Pausch is no longer physically here with his children, his words and legacy can still lift them up.

Comments for Kids September

Interview Book Report

Elise and Cade have a video post on their class blog, "Reflections, Questions and Discoveries". The video is a interview book report. Elise interviews Cade about a book he has read. I commented on their video and told them that the questions were clear and that they were well spoken. I also told them to keep up the good work!

To Infinity And Beyond

Tyler wrote a post about a new invention. His post told me about the invention, the status of it and also the plans to use it. Tyler use a big vocabulary and very good grammar. I commented on the post and said that he had a good vocabulary. I also told him it was important to keep up with things happening in the world. I also told Tyler to keep up the good work.


Amirah And Kim

This post was about what Kim and Amirah did over their holiday. The girls made a list of the things they did. I commented on the post and said I would love to go to England one day. I told them I had been to some places on their list. I asked them what their favorite thing on the list was. I got a reply from Kim. Kim's favorite place was fish mania. Kim also told me that she thought England was Amirah's Favorite thing.

Project #8 Podcast

Blog Post #6

Teaching Networked Students

Wendy Drexler's the The Networked Student is an instructional video on how a networking class works. After watching the video I was knowledgeable of what a networked student is. I think that being a networked student gives the student a wide range of information in which they can take in. I think that it allows the student to share the information, so that others can receive it also. Being in a networking class gives each student the responsibility for their work,unlike the traditional classroom kids will have freedom to decide what they want to work on and when they want to work on it. Networked students have to learn time management and also how to take the responsibilities to ensure they learn. However, I think that even though a networked student takes a lot of the responsibility for their learning, I still think that teachers will hold an important job.

Teachers are important because they guide networked students in the right direction and also filter the content they are viewing. Teacher's hold students countable and are also there to encourage them to succeed. After watching this video, some might would think that teachers jobs are threatened by networking classes. I think that this is important for me as a future teacher to entertain the idea of a networking class. I think that the way students are learning are changing so it is important for me to change my idea of a traditional teacher.

My sister lives in north Alabama and her oldest son just started school. My sister recently educated herself on different educational options for him that are offered near them. During her studies she learned that many of the high schools there offer networking classes. The students go to class part of the time and do the rest of their work online. The high schools near her also offer classes that are done completely online. The students that choose this option are still giving the same educational options, and are also given the opportunity to participate in sports, dance and so on. I think this is wonderful, it offers different types of learning and allows families and students to choose which fits them best. While other schools and places might have a different name for it or way of doing it, I think the idea of a networked student is exciting. I wish that through out my education there would have been options like this. I think a networked student is allowed freedom to become a well-rounded and responsible individual.

My PLN

My Personal Learning Network consist of many different things. I am a student in EDM 310 and also Human Growth and Diverse Society, all of these classes require amount of time on my computer. My PLN consist of my blog, USA Online, EDM310 class blog, class instruction manual. I also use YouTube, Gmail and many other websites in my PLN. Me and the 7th grade networked student share a lot of similar things in our PLN's. We both use some of the same websites, something else that is similar is the process in which we do our homework. She goes to her science agenda, while I go to my google documents and also to EDM 310 class blog. I enjoyed the video and seeing how organized the student is.